The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to managing service discovery and topology for multimedia streaming over wireless local area network (WLAN) connections.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). A wireless network, for example a WLAN, such as a Wi-Fi (e.g., IEEE 802.11) network, may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with one or more stations (STAs) or mobile devices. The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and may enable a mobile device to communicate via the network (or communicate with other devices coupled to the AP). A wireless device may communicate with a network device bi-directionally. For example, in a WLAN, a STA may communicate with an associated AP via downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). The DL (or forward link) may refer to the communication link from the AP to the STA, and the UL (or reverse link) may refer to the communication link from the STA to the AP.
As mobile devices are used to capture or generate content such as audio, video, or multimedia, users may desire to share content between mobile devices and other devices such as TVs, computers, audio systems, and the like. One approach is for one device (e.g., a sink device) to mirror what is displayed on another device (e.g., a source device). Examples of a source device may include a smartphone, tablet, and the like. Examples of a sink device may include a TV, computer screen, etc. In some applications, the source device may transmit the media stream over a wireless link. For example, a source device and a sink device, each connected to an AP, may communicate with each other via the AP. In another example, a Wi-Fi peer-to-peer network, also known as Wi-Fi Direct, allows wireless devices to directly communicate with each other. Devices within range of each other may discover and communicate directly without involving central access points, or discover each other through the AP. In some cases, a source or sink device may be restricted to communicating either directly (e.g., using Wi-Fi Direct) or indirectly (e.g., via an AP), even though an alternative connection topology may improve the quality of the communication. As such, a wireless device may be unable to search for or switch to an alternative connection topology, or may be unable to determine under what circumstances to switch from one connection topology to another.